


the stars in your eyes

by Starrie_Wolf



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Wings, Black Paladin Keith (Voltron), Don't copy to another site, Garrison Commander Shiro, If civilisations evolved from birds and not apes, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-06
Updated: 2019-05-06
Packaged: 2020-02-27 03:28:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18730786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starrie_Wolf/pseuds/Starrie_Wolf
Summary: In this millennium, where technology is so advanced that aviankind can be completely interconnected despite the physical distance between the floating islands they live upon, the Underworld remains a mystery. Even in the Galaxy Garrison – aviankind's premier centre of exploration – few have ventured into the Underworld, where the water vapour weighs densely down upon their feathers and the oxygen-rich air threatens to set them aflame at any moment.But Matt and Sam are missing, and Keith refuses to give up on them, even if it means venturing into the vast depths of uncharted territory down under, cut off from all communications with the Galaxy Garrison.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> With many thanks to my artist @yainedraws, who did some great work on Shiro and Keith with wings for this fic ^.^

It’s still pre-dawn.

He finds himself at the top of the Garrison Tower more and more often these days, looking out at the night sky through the floor-length windows of the observatory.

Always the same spot, always alone.

Objectively, the floor is chilly even through his boots, and he has to wrap his wings around himself to stay warm; but subjectively, Shiro can barely feel any of it.

The stars are as beautiful as always, the sky a gorgeous deep violet that’s the exact shade of Keith’s eyes, a sight he’s always unwittingly getting lost in. Maybe that’s why he comes up here so often. Maybe it’s punishment –

The door flings open.

Shiro blinks.

What was he thinking about again? It doesn’t matter; there’s only one person who’ll barge in on him without knocking like this, and it’s the very same person who haunts his thoughts.

“They've missed three check-ins so far,” Keith announces with very little aplomb, his tone simultaneously defiant and challenging at the same time.

Shiro closes his eyes briefly. He already knows what Keith is going to ask, and he can’t grant it.

“I'm going after them.”

Oh, Keith.

Shiro draws in a steadying breath and turns his head just enough that he can see Keith. The current leader of Team VOLTRON is silhouetted against the bright lights of the hallway, his face cast in shadow. Shiro doesn’t know if it makes it better or worse that he can’t see Keith’s face right now, but it doesn’t matter anyway. He already knows what expression Keith is wearing.

How many times has he seen it? Keith at eighteen, head held high and eyes spitting sparks as he marches into then-Commander Iverson’s office. Keith at twenty, running into Shiro outside Captain Holt’s office past midnight, right after sneaking his application for Team VOLTRON into the pile on the captain’s desk.

“Keith…” he starts, but Keith grits his teeth audibly in frustration, his wings flicking half-open and then shut. Shiro wants to go to him, wants to put a hand on his shoulder, wants to curl a wing around Keith’s own. but he doesn’t know if Keith would welcome his touch right now.

“I’m going,” Keith insists.

He knows that tone. He’s heard it before, when Keith walked away from Team VOLTRON to do a stint in the Wings of Marmora, the Garrison’s surveillance subdivision. It’s the tone that says _I’ve already made up my mind and nothing you say can stop it._

He has to try anyway. Keith’s far too valuable to lose on a mission that could prove as dangerous as this one. For the sake of Team VOLTRON, the top exploration team of aviankind, and for the sake of his own heart – he has to _try_.

Shiro opens his mouth.

Keith slams his fist into the wall behind him, his wings flaring fully open and feathers fluffing up, and Shiro shuts his mouth again.

He has to watch Keith turn around and walk away, his boots thudding against the floor like the sound of Shiro’s heartbeat.

Outside the window, dawn breaks.

Shiro’s changed.

Keith grits his teeth so hard he can hear the grinding sound, stomping down the staircase. He’s in the kind of mood that he’s not allowed to fly in – literally; there is an _actual_ Garrison decree against him using the normal routes when he’s this upset – and the rhythmic clunk of his combat boots against the tile does soothe his temper somewhat. By the time he reaches the ground level, his feathers are smoothening out, no longer quite as ruffled as they had been.

This Shiro, _Garrison Commander_ Shiro, isn’t the same avian he’s known. VOLTRON leader Shiro would have stood his ground against Commander Iverson, would’ve argued for his right to go, would’ve cared more about finding Matt and Sam than some stupid Garrison protocol.

Fuck that.

 _Keith_ is the leader of Team VOLTRON now, and even if Shiro can refuse to officially deploy them, he can’t chain Keith to the ground. No matter what he says, Keith is going to Kerberos to figure out what happened to the Holts – without Garrison support if he has to. They could be injured, their comms damaged, waiting for a rescue that never comes – and once the golden window passes even the best medical technology can’t fix avian wings. They’d be grounded for life.

Keith gives a little shudder and quickens his steps, leaping down entire flights of stairs and flaring his wings just enough to cushion the fall. He’s taking up the entire staircase, but it doesn’t matter, there’s no one else around at this early hour – nobody takes the handicapped route if they don’t have to, and Keith knows for a fact the disabled veterans relegated to admin don’t need to report to work this early.

He’ll need some supplies, of course, extra first aid kits –

He rounds the corner to the Armoury, and his feet stop.

“What are you guys doing here?”

Pidge shoves her glasses up her nose. Her wings, mottled brown and two-thirds the size of an average avian, flap once in impatience. “Waiting for you, obviously.”

It’s not like Keith has magically managed to overlook the fact that they are coming from the direction of the Armoury, that they’re decked out in full VOLTRON gear, or that they have bulging packs slung over their backs and hips.

Traitorously, his heart leaps.

“Did Shiro –”

Lance snorts, shattering the faint hope stirring in his chest. “What, you think we need _him_ to _tell_ us that you’re planning to go to Kerberos yourself?”

“Lance is right.” Allura nods. “We know you well enough to guess that ourselves.”

“You guys –” After Shiro’s rejection, which _still stings_ no matter how many times Keith tells himself it doesn’t matter whether Shiro approves of him or not, the unanimous support from his team throws him a little bit.

Still, he finds it in himself to put up a token protest. “The penalty for deploying without a sanctioned mission is dismissal,” he reminds them. “And this is going to be a lot more dangerous than usual. We still don’t know what attacked Matt and Sam. If you walk away now, no one will fault you for it.”

Nobody moves.

“You’re a dumbass,” Lance informs him. “What, did you think we were going to let you go alone?”

“And that’s my _brother_ and _father_ out there,” Pidge points out. “Shouldn’t _I_ be the one trying to dissuade all of you from following me?”

Hunk just shakes his head. “Keith, you’re really cool, man, but sometimes you say really stupid things like that.”

“We’re a _team_ ,” Lance stresses, groaning. “We stick together, no matter what.”

Keith’s throat is so tight he can barely get a word out, but the rest of his team just nod at him like they understand what he wants to say anyway.

_Thank you._

They’ve got his back, as always.

He’s already in his flightsuit, his pack over his shoulders. Everything’s been accounted for, Kosmo has been fed and told he should go find Shiro if he needs anything before Keith gets back. There’s nothing to stop him from leaving right that instant.

He resolutely does not look up at the tower as he leads the way out of the gates.

From the observatory at the top of the Garrison Tower, Shiro watches the tiny figures of Team VOLTRON file through the east gates one by one. There’s a sharp drop a short way off, the edge of the island sloping down until it vanishes beneath the clouds, and then there’ll be nothing between them and the vast expanse of space.

He threads his fingers through Kosmo’s fur, thumbing over the galaxies twirling through his coat. Kosmo had turned up almost the moment Keith had stomped out, and is now curled up at Shiro’s feet like he’s there to watch Keith leave.

Shiro won’t put it past him. Kosmo is terrifyingly intelligent. He still doesn’t know where Keith found him, and Keith is tight-lipped about the two years he spent in the Wings of Marmora, but Shiro has so far been still been holding out hope that Keith would be willing to open up to him one day.

For now, he’ll be content with the fact that he’s the only person Keith trusts with Kosmo when he’s away on a mission that doesn’t require a winged wolf. Logically, Shiro knows that it’s because he never leaves the Garrison, and therefore he’s the best person to take care of Keith’s beloved pet – but his heart wishes it was otherwise anyway.

Down below, Keith spreads his wings open, a gorgeous charcoal that shines like obsidian when it catches the light even from so far away, and dives beneath the clouds.

Shiro stands up. He’s suddenly restless, his back muscles itching, and he _needs_ to get away from the confines of indoor life for a moment.

“Want to go for a flight?”

Kosmo barks in assent, getting up from the floor.

Shiro slides the door to the balcony open, gets them both situated, and then slides the door shut again. This high up, all manner of debris tends to get in if there’s an open door, and Shiro does not want to find his favourite spot crawling with maintenance droids when he gets back. There’s a short railing on the balcony, more to prevent accidental mis-steps than to stop falls. Shiro gets a knee onto the wide railing beam, giving his wings the room to open up fully. There’s a good breeze coming from the southeast, he can feel it.

He launches himself from the railing.

Kosmo bobs behind him, his own wings arched. They’re patterned with swirling galaxies just like the rest of his fur coat, studded with starlight in a way that has never failed to remind Shiro of Keith’s eyes.

The wind catches on his feathers, rustling through his hair, and for a moment Shiro lets himself forget about the dangerous situation Keith – beautiful, reckless Keith, whom Shiro had only ever dared to admire from afar – is diving into.

Kosmo makes a questioning bark that’s swiftly carried away by the wind, and Shiro laughs.

“Okay, buddy.”

He banks north, heading resolutely away from the gate that Keith had just disappeared through. Kosmo barks again, darting ahead, and Shiro lets himself be led into a merry chase through the brightening skies.

They don’t stop until they can no longer see the Garrison Towers. This far out, their surroundings are untouched by civilisation, a desert of rocky cliffs and sandy fields dotted with the rare oasis. Kosmo bounds forwards, heading unerringly towards what Shiro belatedly recognises to be one such oasis. He must’ve scented the water, the smart boy.

Shiro too lands on the ground, loose rocks crunching underneath his boots. Kosmo has his snout raised to the sky, his tongue lolling out to catch the fine spray from the waterfall – next cliff yonder – disappearing beneath the clouds.

Keith told him once: in the Underworld, water falls from the sky sometimes.

Shiro shakes his head violently. He’s not thinking about Keith. Keith will be fine. He always is.

Kosmo whines softly, nuzzling at Shiro’s hand.

“Yeah, buddy.” Shiro gives him a good scratch behind the ears. “I miss him too.”

Two days later, they lose all contact with Team VOLTRON.

Shiro swears to himself that if he ever sees Keith again, he’s going to tell Keith that he loves him.


	2. Chapter 2

_The previous day…_

Pidge is using her propulsion thrusters again.

Keith doesn’t have the heart to stop her, to point out that the jet propulsion boosters are meant for emergency use only, or that she’s wasting huge chunks of fuel by applying them to air instead of solid ground.

She knows that already.

It’s been over forty hours since they left the Garrison, and they’ve only stopped twice. Once, because the clouds above had shifted, and the cloud cover had been so thin, they had to find shelter or risk their feathers catching fire in the oxygen-rich Underworld. Again, when it grew too dark to see and they were forced to stop for the night.

Pidge had been restless both times, the last to stop and the first to leave, but she hadn’t protested the necessity of it.

It had been written all over her face anyway.

Kerberos is a low-lying dwarf satellite island on the edge of the Orian Belt, one of the few belts of large islands capable of supporting avian life in the known universe. Most of the islands lie above the clouds, as suits avian physiology, but Pluto and its satellite Kerberos lie deep beneath the atmosphere, a full two days away even with the best tech the Garrison has to offer.

As far as Keith knows, Sam and Matt had been gathering chippings on Kerberos, examining the microscopic make-up of the soil and plants to see if sentient alien life can be sustainable in the Underworld. They’re both experienced explorers with multiple missions under their belts, and there should’ve been no reason for them to drop out of contact like this.

He shields his eyes with one hand. In the span of a few minutes, they confirm what the change in air currents through his feathers has already told him: they’ve arrived. He plunges a hand into his utility belt, finding a signal beacon with the ease of long practice, and clicks the dial over to “destination reached”.

Ahead of him, Pidge veers out of formation and into a steep dive. Keith curses, tossing the beacon aside – it’s already transmitting anyway – in favour of pulling out his bayard.

“Did you see something?” he demands.

The communications channel is complete silent for the briefest of moments before it blows up again, Lance’s voice repeating Keith’s question with far less patience, the high-pitched whine of Allura powering up her own bayard, Hunk’s pleas that everyone calm down, and a cool mechanical voice informing him, “Incoming request for permission to open a long-range transmission channel. Verified codes: Galaxy Garrison.”

Keith does _not_ have the breath to spare for that right now.

Ignoring all of them, Pidge folds her wings back up when she’s close enough to the ground, turning her momentum into a forward roll. She’s holding her bayard, but it’s not ignited yet. Instead, she strides in an apparently random direction, her shoulders set in a way that tells Keith she won’t be dissuaded.

Keith holds up a hand to signal a _halt_.

To their credit, the other three members of Team Voltron pull up obediently, even though Lance is making that expression like he’s this close to insubordination.

“Allura, you follow Pidge. Lance, you and Hunk take the other coast. I’ll cut through the middle. Meet you on the far side of Kerberos in two hours if nobody’s found anything until then.”

They nod and scatter.

Kerberos is a dwarf island comprising largely of gentle rolling hills and vast expanses of plains, so three teams should be enough to cover the entire island. Keith trusts his team’s capabilities; if there are any traces of Matt or Sam, they’ll be able to find them.

He dips his own wings to carry himself closer to the ground. The other four are likely too tired to fly any more, but he thinks he can still go for a bit before he has to rest his wings. Back when he used to be a cadet, Shiro used to joke about his stamina –

Nope. He’s not going down that path. He’s in the middle of a critical mission and can’t afford that kind of distraction right now.

As it is, Keith very nearly misses the signs of inhabitation anyway. He radios in his location, drops to the ground, and runs a critical eye over the campsite. The whole setup speaks of Sam’s veteran hand, what with how it’s tucked neatly in a gorge and covered in the local foliage to disguise from the casual eye.

“Hello?” he calls out, drawing his bayard. “Sam, Matt, are you around?”

Only silence greets him.

“On our way,” Allura reports.

She is echoed by Lance, who also adds, “Keith, do not engage –”

Keith lifts the curtain of moss aside and steps into the camp.

The camp is empty, he can see that at a glance, and judging from the flies – a by-product of being so close to the Underworld – it has been this way for a while. But the sight that meets his eyes doesn’t make any sense either: Matt’s tablet is still sitting on his bedroll, next to a half-eaten ration bar, and there is an opened bag of those freeze-dried peas that Sam is known to love lying on the table.

Nothing has been disturbed, which is perhaps the most disturbing part of all.

It’s like a scene out of a horror movie: the camp looks as if Sam and Matt had only just stepped out for a moment.

“Incoming request for permission to open a long-range transmission –”

“Denied,” Keith snaps, his grip tightening on his bayard. They were taken totally _unaware_ , and Kerberos is just as uninhabited as the information packets have claimed, which can only mean…

There’s a thud of boots on the compact earth outside the camp, followed by Lance’s annoyed voice. “Keith, I told you to wait –”

“Incoming request –”

“Okay, _fine_!” Keith shouts. “Permission granted!”

He tries not to watch when Shiro’s face flashes into view on his HUD, but the tiny frown creasing his brow draws Keith’s eyes as if it’s a magnet. “Keith,” Shiro begins.

“Not now,” Keith barks. It has the bonus of silencing Lance mid-sentence as well, although from the thunderous look on Lance’s face, it won’t last long.

“Lance, look,” Hunk says slowly, evidently having caught the same implication as Keith did. “By the suns, what happened here?”

Lance scratches his head. “Nothing?”

Keith would make a jab as to his intelligence, but Lance is spinning around in place slowly, realisation spreading over his face. “Exactly,” he says anyway, more for Shiro’s sake than to needle at Lance. “The campsite is left as though they fully intended to return, but it has been at least four days since they’ve last been here, judging from the cloud of flies. The first aid kit is full and gathering dust in the corner, so neither of them was injured. Whatever that befall them, it took them by complete surprise.”

He would have continued his report if he isn’t cut off by a piercing scream.

“Pidge?” Keith demands, shoving the curtain of moss aside. “Allura!” He can hear the heavy breathing that is Shiro trying to stop himself from demanding to know what’s going on, but he can’t spare the capacity to be grateful for that right now. “Status report!”

“We’re fine!” Allura yelps, but the way her voice lilts up higher in pitch does not provide Keith with any reassurance. “We’re about three-quarters along the coast to the far end of Kerberos… I think you need to come and see this.”

“On our way,” Keith promises tersely. His wings protest feebly when he flares them open, but Keith breathes through the ache like he’s been doing since his back muscles developed enough to carry his weight.

They make the distance in record time and blessed silence. Even Lance is panting too hard to make any inane quips, and Shiro must’ve understood enough from the few pithy responses he’s overheard to know that Keith is too busy to respond right now.

Mid-air, Keith banks sharply on pure muscle memory alone. He sees why Allura has no words to describe what she saw, and why Pidge screamed now.

Oh, does he _see_.

On the far end of Kerberos, there is a deep gouge in the land that plunges so far downwards that Keith cannot see the bottom, even though it is only mid-day and the sun is high in the sky. He peers over the edge, squinting into the encroaching gloom, but his eyes can only pick out what appears to be some kind of dense foliage far, far below.

“There is a ravine – no, a breach in the landscape on the far side of Kerberos,” he reports dutifully. “It’s perhaps three wing-spans wide, but so deep that I cannot see where it ends.” He gets up, and then hesitates. “Also,” he forces his voice to remain emotionless, to not choke up over the words, “there are several bloodstained feathers scattered across the ground near the edge of the breach. Pidge recognises them.”

By the sharp inhale Shiro gives, he knows exactly what that means.

Keith backs away from the gorge and turns sideways, unwilling to turn his back on it. His team is staring at it with various expressions of shock, horror, and determination on their faces. Lance has a hold on the back of Pidge’s flightsuit, as though he’s had to stop her from doing something rash like jump into the breach.

“I won’t ask you to follow me,” he starts, only to be interrupted by Pidge.

“That’s fine.” Her hands are balled into fists at her sides. “I’m not following you, I’m following my dad and my brother.”

Keith sweeps his gaze over the rest of Team Voltron. The expressions of shock and horror are vanishing from their faces, to be replaced with resolve. He can’t ask for a better team.

“Keith, I forbid you –”

Keith takes a few steps forwards and _jumps_.

His eyes did not betray him; there is a vast expanse of dense foliage far below the gorge, but he’s so very wrong about that being the bottom of the breach.

Keith holds up his hand for a water break. This far below, rare gases like oxygen hangs heavy in the air, occupying a whopping _twenty_ percent of the gaseous mix his helmet is currently filtering through. Keith is very thankful for the fact his helmet is designed to filter out toxins; he has no desire to suffocate in the Underworld.

For this must be the Underworld, even though they have now far surpassed the record depth of descent than any exploration team before them. Only down below do gases such as oxygen and water vapour dominate in such a manner, trapping so much heat that even with his suit’s cooling system running on maximum capacity Keith feels as though he’s getting broiled.

He empties his canteen of water into his mouth, taking a good look around.

There is _green_ and _brown_ as far as he can see in every direction. As far as he can tell, the dominant species around them is some kind of tall bush, although Keith has never seen plants of such monstrous size before. The brown stem alone is thicker than the five of them put together, and each leaf is the size of his wing-span.

Something round and hard meets his fingers. With a start, Keith realises that his fingers had automatically sought out a signal beacon.

This gives him an idea.

“Everyone,” he calls out. “Keep a look-out for any signal beacons.”

Matt and Sam must’ve expected a rescue party to show up at some point, and their pockets will be just as full of signal beacons as Keith’s. They would have tried to leave clues if they could.

Just in case, Keith pulls out his own signal beacon, twists the dial over to ‘communications array’, and watches the little flat disc unfold itself into a satellite dish. He wedges it deep into the branch he’s standing on, and then swipes the button at the corner of his HUD that would send out a transmission request to the Galaxy Garrison.

 _No signal_ , his HUD flashes after a moment.

“Let me try,” Pidge says suddenly. It’s the first time she’s spoken since they began their descent.

After a few minutes of furious typing, her fingers slow down, and then stop. “The plant life here’s too extensive, all that organic matter’s interfering with the signal.” Her lips purse, as if in thought. “I’ve been taking readings, once we get back I’ll have to revamp the network to account for this type of interference.”

“But there’s nothing you can do now?” Keith confirms.

Silently, Pidge shakes her head.

“Oh.” Keith sits down on the branch, trying to ignore the way his heart just skipped a beat. No signal means that they’re completely cut off from Shiro – no, from the _Garrison_ , which is not a good place to be when they’re possibly walking into a fight.

 _Shiro must be going mad from the number of times his request to open a communications channel has bounced_ , Keith thinks to himself, and then immediately tries to erase that thought. He shouldn’t be thinking about Shiro right now, he should be focusing on getting Sam and Matt back.

“Over here!”

Keith pushes himself up from the branch, all exhaustion forgotten. Allura is crouched on a lower branch several wing-beats downwards, peering at something on one of the leaves. As he draws close enough to see what has caught her attention, Keith feels his heart sink.

Sam and Matt are leaving a trail all right. It’s just not the kind of trail that Keith has envisioned.

“Whatever, _whoever_ that’s got them must be sentient,” Pidge says suddenly. “Look, this pattern of,” her voice hitches, “of bloodstains over here, it’s at an awkward angle, which means their hands must be bound.”

That also explains the lack of signal beacons along the way. If they had been taken captive by mere beasts, their hands would’ve been free to leave a trail.

“Are you kidding me?” Hunk moans. “There’s sentient life in the _Underworld_?”

“Ones that can’t fly,” Pidge agrees grimly. “They’re moving a lot faster than we are, which suggests that they’re much more compact, likely no wings to get in the way.”

Keith clenches a hand into a fist. “Then we’ll fold up our wings and run,” he decides, and the five of them share a _look_ , pulling out their bayards.

“We’ll get them back,” he can hear Lance whispering to Pidge.

Keith can only wish he is that confident himself.

They don’t find anything that first day.

Well, they _do_. A few scattered feathers, even a signal beacon or two, dial turned to the ominous ‘aid required’ – but nothing substantial. Nothing about what their captives may be, or where they are right now.

A day in the Underworld, and Keith still can’t get used to how _loud_ everything is down here. There’s a nonstop buzzing noise that almost made them think they were being followed, except that they soon realised the sound is coming from ubiquitous nests of some unidentifiable insect.

Hunk had squeaked in horror at the sight of them, each the size of Keith’s hand, and they unanimously agreed to leave the nests alone.

But as night falls, even Pidge has to grudgingly agree that they must stop for the night, lest they miss any important clues in the dark.

Keith doesn’t sleep well that night.

They are sleeping in shifts, of course, but the sheer amount of noise is keeping him up when he’s used to solitude. The rest of his team has it better; they all lived with other people, especially Lance with his uncountable younger cousins, and so they must be somewhat more used to sleeping through white noise.

He wonders how Shiro’s doing, whether he’s given up trying to establish a transmission channel yet, whether he’s remembered to take Kosmo on his usual evening flight.

Kosmo.

He wishes he’s taken Kosmo along. A space wolf’s nose would be so helpful right now, letting them know whether they’re on the right track, or whether they’re blundering in the wrong direction altogether. As things stand, they’re going very slowly, searching high and wide for each additional, precious clue.

At least they’ve only found two more bloodstained feathers so far. Pidge confirms that both belong to Matt, and have been plucked out carefully at the root, suggesting that it may be a deliberate act.

Keith gets to his feet, giving Lance – who’s on duty – a wave. Since he can’t sleep anyway, maybe he’ll just continue the search. It’ll give him something to do, even if it’s much slower in the dark. Every wing-beat covered is another wing-beat they don’t have to scour come morning.

He jumps to another branch lower down. There’s no wind down here, no updrafts of air like there would be back in the Overworld. Combined with the densely-populated thick stems pressing in on him in the darkness and the endless buzzing, it’s starting to make even Keith feel a little claustrophobic.

Keith shakes his head furiously, blinking. He… did he just see something glint in the distance?

Maybe it’s another signal beacon, he thinks hopefully, and dares to flare his wings just a little bit to carry him that longer distance.

He lands on the closest branch, peering into the gloom, and he’s wondering if he should risk turning on the flashlight built into his suit when something hits him so hard on the back of the head that he –

– _blacks out_.


	3. Chapter 3

Keith wakes up in increments.

There’s pain, so much pain that he cannot stifle a groan, even if his very being is screaming at him to remain undetected for as long as possible. He doesn’t know where he is, doesn’t _care_ where he is, even, so long as something can make the pain go away.

Someone’s leaning over him, their shadow a stark contrast to the light searing through his eyelids just a moment prior.

He tries to say something, but his voice emerges as a croak instead. There’s something he’s forgetting, something terribly important, but his mind is writhing with agony and recollection is stubbornly far from the surface.

“Please, have mercy, he needs treatment –”

The words are interrupted by the sharp ring of a slap, and Keith wants to protest, but unconsciousness is tugging at him again.

“Such weaklings. A bit of a broken bone and he can’t even keep his eyes open.”

Something sears against the source of his suffering, and Keith gladly passes out again.

The next time Keith comes to, the pain has subsided to a dull ache. Still at least a seven out of ten on the pain scale, but at least he isn’t seeing stars anymore.

“You’re awake,” says a very familiar voice.

Keith turns his head slightly to see Matt watching him, forehead creased exactly like Pidge’s when she’s worried. There’s a damp rag in his hand, and Keith can still feel its aftereffects on his brow. His helmet’s missing.

“… thanks.”

Matt shakes his head mutely. He looks bedraggled, covered in grime and streaks of blood, his wings a shade of muddied brown instead of the rich earthy tone Keith is used to seeing on Pidge.

“What... happened.”

Each word is an exercise in tolerance, of forcing his oddly abused vocal cords to produce more sound. Keith slumps against the branch propping him up.

Matt is – was? – missing, he remembers now. Captured by aliens from Underworld along with Sam. And he was trying to find them, was following a sparse trail of clues like breadcrumbs, except it seems the enemies found him first.

“You, uh,” Matt clears his throat. “She got the jump on you in the dark.”

“She?” Keith tries to ask, but only a hoarse croak emerges.

Matt seems to understand him anyway. “They call themselves the Galra, and they look like... cats without wings? Or maybe bats, it’s hard to tell. Probably evolved from some kind of feline or at least a mammal, with superb night vision and can move in absolute silence.” He claps his hands together in mock delight. “So! Apparently all the myths are true, avians aren’t the only sentient species in the universe after all!” His face falls. “Although, these Galra don’t seem to understand the concept of _I come in peace_.” His wings flicker, the only sign of his anxiety.

Keith’s eyes have been darting around while Matt’s been talking, but from his position he can’t see anyone else around, just more of those brown stems and branches and the occasional insect nest. In fact, neither he nor Matt seem to be bound.

He makes a gesture, miming ropes tying his wrists together.

“Oh,” Matt says quietly, pointing in a direction behind Keith. “Well, they took my dad with them, and you’re hurt. I can’t leave either of you behind.”

Keith automatically twists his body around to look in the direction Matt’s pointing, and –

_P A I N_

Awareness resurfaces in fits and starts.

The rough bark he’s leaning against. The searing pain in his back. The incessant chatter of someone next to his ear, sounding like he’s a hair’s breadth away from panic.

“– Keith! C’mon, buddy, don’t do this to me, wake up –”

 _I’m awake_ , Keith thinks.

What he means to say is, “’m fine.”

What actually comes out is, “Mmmpfh.”

“Oh, thank the stars.” Matt slumps in exaggerated relief, but it’s hard for Keith to forget that the note of fear in his voice had been real.

But he’s not actually fine, is he? Matt had implied that Keith is too injured for the Galra to consider him a threat – stars, even Matt is considered too weak for the Galra to bother tying him up – and judging from the source of the pain…

Keith grits his teeth.

He _has_ to know. Has to confirm what Matt’s evasiveness and his own reactions have been leading him to suspect.

He tries to shift his wings just the tiniest fraction, and the pain hits him like a sledgehammer. Even though he’s prepared for this worst-case scenario, he can’t help but let a tiny hiss out through his teeth.

“What are you _doing_?” shrieks Matt. “Stop that – stop hurting yourself –”

Keith doesn’t need him to finish his sentence. An avian without a wing is a cripple, someone worse than useless. No matter how far technology has advanced in the past century, they have yet to build prosthetic wings that allow a crippled avian to truly fly again.

Pure, unadulterated terror grips at his heart.

The wound is still so new that infection has yet to set in, but if he doesn’t get it treated soon, he’ll lose the wing. For someone who _needs_ the air as much as he does, not being able to fly – would kill him.

For Keith, the next few hours pass by in a daze of pain, terror, and realisation.

It turns out that Matt and he may have been a tad too uncircumspect when they’d been talking, and had inadvertently awoken one of their Galra captors.

Keith understands why Matt doesn’t try to run now. The one who checks on them the most is called Zethrid, and she is this hulking behemoth about the size of Matt and Keith put together. But she’s not an anomaly of her species; from what Matt conveys to him in whispers, all the Galra he’s seen are this big, even the smallest of them is a full head taller than he is. They are covered in fur in shades ranging from pale lavender to dark purple to something far more colourful, like the variations in an avian’s wings.

He wonders if Shiro could be a match –

No. No, he’s not going there.

The rest of his team is still out there, somewhere. Commander Lotor has sent the rest of his generals out to search for them, but Voltron has so far proven elusive.

Zethrid seems content to leave them alone as long as Keith and Matt aren’t active irritating her, although she’s does keep half an eye on them. To prevent them from harbouring any thoughts of escape, Keith assumes.

Not that they would try to escape, since Sam is still chained to a branch and Keith can’t move at anything faster than a stumble, much to their captors’ derision. To them, broken bones are a minor inconvenience to be endured, not a matter of life or death.

 _Victory or death_.

With a greeting like that, Keith isn’t surprised that the Galra are a primarily warring species. Individual clans hold territories, which they then seek to expand by invading other clans. From the conversations they’ve overheard, Sam and Matt have managed to determine that Lotor and his generals come from the biggest clan there is, and that their squadron is in charge of defending this particular quadrant.

Keith doesn’t know what to say about the fact that Lotor only found Kerberos, and therefore Sam and Matt, on a _whim_ to see where that crack in the sky leads.

“Get up, we’re leaving.”

Keith blinks groggily, uncomprehendingly up at the one who just rudely awakened him.

“Ch. _Useless_ ,” Zethrid bites out, turning her head away as though she can’t bear to look at him anymore. That may very well be the case, given the numerous times she’s called them wimpy, useless, weak, or similar adjectives.

Shiro would’ve been fascinated by the conqueror mentality that dominates the Galra culture. That man has always had a soft spot for anthropological studies –

He’s taken too long to get to his feet.

Zethrid looks like she would love to punch him in the face, but she’s refraining with Herculean effort.

“Is the prisoner ready to go yet?” shouts one of their other captors, the one with the rainbow-patterned fur.

“Almost!” Zethrid shouts back. She scowls harder, dragging Keith to his feet with one arm, and heads off in the direction of the rest with Keith’s arm still in her grip.

His broken wing aches, but Keith tries desperately to breathe through the pain, stumbling along in her wake.

“Which fucker is it this time, Ezor?” Zethrid shouts.

Ezor looks up from where she’s supervising Matt untying Sam. “Sendak.”

Zethrid bursts into a flurry of curses, her grip tightening on Keith’s arm to the point where Keith thinks his arm might break. “Of course it’s that asshole. Must’ve heard that Lotor’s away, the bastard.”

The commander’s away? Keith flicks a glance at Sam, who nods in the guise of staggering to his feet.

“And Narti too,” Ezor continues. “Acxa left to scout ahead; our orders are to crush Sendak and then bring these prisoners back to Daibazaal.”

“Thought Lotor wanted to grab the rest of those alien explorers,” Zethrid mutters, giving Keith a suspicious look. He hastily wipes his face clean of any burgeoning hope. If there are only two of these Galra left to guard them, and they’re focused on some external threat…

Ezor shrugs. “Change of plans. Sendak’s a much bigger threat than these weaklings.”

They don’t make it more than an hour before Acxa comes bounding through the branches.

“He’s here,” she reports tersely.

Zethrid growls, shoving Keith aside and firing up the gigantic rifle strapped to her back. Matt gets a hold of Keith before he can fall off the branch, and the three of them huddle behind the safety of a thick stem.

Ezor suddenly pops up in front of them out of nowhere, grinning so wide her sharp teeth glint in the light. “Don’t even think about escaping, now, or I’ll break a couple more wings!” she tells them cheerfully, like it’s a friendly reminder instead of a threat.

Keith’s fist clenches, and he has to force himself to relax.

 _Patience_ , he reminds himself. _Focus_.

Sam nods smoothly. “We don’t want that either,” he agrees. He doesn’t actually promise that they won’t run, Keith can’t help but notice.

“Good that you know! It would be _such_ a shame to have to break these pretty things.” She shoots them a mock-stern frown at them before bouncing back to the other two Galra.

… she’s insane, Keith concludes. It’s even more imperative that they escape while they still can –

A thunderous roar shakes the very plants they are standing on, like an earthbound hurricane.

“Is that…” Matt trails off, but Keith can’t blame him. Is that the power this Sendak wields?

Zethrid begins firing at nothing, and at first Keith thinks they are warning shots, but no. Small metallic orbs begin falling like rain.

“Take them out, Acxa!”

“On it!” Acxa’s fingers dance over her arm, pressing a series of buttons on her metallic wrist guard – no, wait, is that a miniature computer?

An arc of electricity whips out, catching the orbs in mid-air and forcing them to appear. They’re hidden by some kind of cloaking device, Keith realises, like the prototype that Pidge has been fiddling with in her spare time, but at a size she can only dream of right now.

He hopes he gets to tell her that it’s possible.

Sendak, when he finally appears, is a hulking beast three times the size of Zethrid, which Keith hasn’t even known is possible. His left arm is clearly cybernetic, glowing an ominous shade of purple, and he wastes no time in sending it flying at them.

Ezor tumbles out of the way, a full sleeve of throwing knives leaving her hands.

“Uh, guys,” Matt says slowly, as the cybernetic arm shoots towards them.

“Brace!” shouts Keith, grabbing the branch underneath his feet, and not a moment too soon. The impact of that arm against the plant makes the whole thing shake, and he can hear Sam uttering a startled expletive when the branch they are standing on _snaps_.

Only Sam and Matt’s quick reflexes catch Keith before he goes tumbling over the edge together with the fallen branch. They drag him further away from the fight, and not so coincidentally several branches higher.

“Now?” Matt murmurs, glancing back at the ongoing fight.

“Now,” Sam agrees decisively, and swings one of Keith’s arms over his shoulder to carry him more easily.

“They’ll probably notice we’re gone soon,” Sam warns as they leap from branch to branch, using their wings to propel them higher. “We’ll have to cover as much ground as we can before –”

“Going somewhere?” asks a very sweet and very pissed off voice. Ezor materialises out of nowhere, twirling a knife between her fingers.

All three of them freeze.

Matt takes a step in front of Sam, his wings flaring out in challenge. “Take Keith and go, Dad.” His voice is even as he unfolds his quarterstaff.

Sam hesitates. “You…”

“Oy, you ugly peacock, over here!”

“Pidge?” “Katie?”

Keith’s head snaps up, and he peers over Sam’s shoulder to see Pidge standing behind Ezor, bayard activated and wearing a triumphant grin on her face.

“ _Ugly_?” Ezor shrieks, spinning around.

Matt leaps forward, quarterstaff spinning, but Ezor just bats him aside impatiently and advances on Pidge.

“Go help them!” Keith hisses into Sam’s ear. Ezor is duelling the two of them to a standstill, but perhaps the addition of a third person would tilt the battle in their favour. “I’ll be fine on my own!”

Sam glances down in the direction of the main battle, as though to reassure himself that Sendak is still keeping the other two generals busy, and a tremendous crash coming from that direction evidently makes up his mind for him.

“Run, we’ll be right behind you,” he instructs, setting Keith down onto the branch and turning to help his children.

Keith activates his jet propulsors and leaps for the next branch, gritting his teeth as the motion jars his broken wing. If Pidge is here, the rest of his team should be nearby. Even if they aren’t as good at combat as the Galra, they’ve got numbers in their favour and Sendak at the rear. They don’t need to win, they just need to get back to the Overworld.

No matter how powerful they are in the Underworld, the Galra, with their dense bones and heavy bodies, won’t be able to fly.

“ _You_.”

Keith’s heart very nearly stops.

With a snarl, Zethrid advances upon him. “You think you can escape from us?” she sneers. “A useless cripple like _you_?”

Keith grits his teeth, pulling out his bayard and activating his sword. There’s no way he can outrun Zethrid, he knows that, so his only option is to defeat her. His heart pounds, his arm is subtly trembling with the strain, but Keith has never given up and won’t start now –

The familiar jerk of teleportation catches him by complete surprise, causing Keith to overbalance and topple straight into an even more familiar chest.


	4. Chapter 4

For a moment, Keith is sure he must be hallucinating.

Shiro can’t be here. Shiro should be at the Galaxy Garrison, coordinating the rescue parties. Voltron has only been out of contact for slightly under two days, there’s no way any of them could’ve arrived yet –

Kosmo reappears with a bruised Matt in tow, his tongue lolling out the way it does whenever he thinks he’s done something worthy of praise.

Keith swallows. “Good boy,” he croaks hoarsely. Either this is a very vivid hallucination, or –

“I’m here.” And that’s definitely Shiro’s voice, his chest rumbling with the words. And then, awkwardly, “I’ve got you.”

There are a thousand and one words Keith wants to say, _how_ and _why_ and _I hoped you would come_ , but he swallows all of them back. Now isn’t the time to distract Shiro with questions.

Shiro hoists him a little higher over his shoulder and leaps for the next branch, his powerful wings whipping up a gale that makes even these towering plants creak and sway. Keith yelps at the sudden momentum. He has to wrap his legs around Shiro’s waist and his arms around Shiro’s neck, so that Shiro doesn’t have to support his entire weight with just one arm.

Somewhere in the distance, Kosmo gives a triumphant howl. Keith can see him coming nearer, vanishing mid-bound here and there, reappearing on nearby branches. Chasing behind him is Ezor who’s cursing loudly and angrily, her throwing knives always missing their target. She falters when an ice bullet pierces through her shoulder, and then another, and yet another, as if Lance is using his sniper rifle like a machine gun.

Keith breathes out a sigh of relief.

“Rendezvous on Kerberos,” Shiro barks into his helmet mic. And then, softer, just for him, “Pidge’s got your helmet, she’ll bring it over later.”

Keith nods against his shoulder in lieu of a verbal response.

Everyone’s fine.

He closes his eyes and rests his cheek on Shiro’s shoulder. _Just for a while_ , he tells himself.

Keith nearly jumps when Shiro lands with a thud.

The repetitive motions of Shiro’s wingbeats has very nearly lulled him to sleep, somehow, even with the constant ache in his wing and the rigid chassis of their respective armour.

“Sorry,” Shiro says.

Keith unwraps his legs from around Shiro’s waist, but Shiro doesn’t make any move to let him down, so Keith ends up looking like he’s sitting in the crook of Shiro arm. Keith would protest this treatment, but Kosmo is demanding his attention, and with a huff Keith strokes through Kosmo’s fur in lieu of insisting that Shiro put him down.

There’s no way he can make the two-day journey back to Garrison Island on his own.

“Your helmet,” Pidge announces loudly.

Keith takes it from her, thankful that she doesn’t make any comments, and puts it on.

_Bio-signature confirmed. Welcome back, BLACK PALADIN Keith._

_Establishing connection…_

_Still establishing…_

_Connection established._

His helmet HUD loads with a soft vibrating hum, all systems coming online, and Keith very nearly yanks the whole thing off his head again when a ridiculously long notification ringtone blasts into his ears and the screen becomes blanketed in blinking error messages.

“… sorry,” he can just barely hear Shiro mutter.

“For what?” Keith asks, before he realises what every single one of those error message windows says.

_Missed transmission request. From: Galaxy Garrison. Priority: Urgent. Respond?_

Keith swipes the whole lot of them away, which thankfully also silences the nonstop notification ringtone, until he can actually see out of his helmet visor.

_You have: 102 missed transmission requests._

“… seriously?” he deadpans.

Shiro stares straight ahead, starting to walk in the direction of the Garrison, but Keith catches the tips of his ears turning pink.

Keith grins and opens his mouth, about to continue ribbing him, when Kosmo suddenly growls and wheels around, paws planted in a battle stance.

“How _dare_ you,” snarls a very familiar, and very unwelcome voice.

“What –”

Right. He’s forgotten. The Galra can get up to Kerberos too, that’s how they found Sam and Matt in the first place.

Shiro presses him back down onto his shoulder, taking to the air in one powerful leap.

“ _Run_!”

Keith bites his lip, his hands clenched into fists behind Shiro’s back. Shiro’s flagging, but not by much, but the rest of them are starting to have trouble flying in a straight line. Even adrenaline isn’t going to help to overcome nearly five days of exhaustion.

On the surface of Kerberos, he can see their Galra captor pulls out their laser guns. Even on two legs, they’re running fast enough to catch up with the straggling avians, and it doesn’t matter if they can’t fly as long as they can shoot them out of the sky.

He can hear Shiro’s heavy breathing, knows that he’s a liability like this, but he also knows that Shiro would _never_ agree to put him down.

“Paladins,” Shiro finally announces, his face grim. “Prepare for –”

“Shiro!” Matt shouts, forcing himself to close the distance between them. “Shiro, we just need to keep going, they won’t be able –” he swerves out of the way of a shot “– keep it up! They need oxygen to keep going, and Kerberos doesn’t have the quantities they’re used to!”

Keith taps at Shiro’s shoulder, indicating that he should save his strength for flying. “Guys!” Keith shouts into his helmet mic. “Use your jet propulsors! We just need to last a little longer, they can’t keep up!”

There’s the simultaneous firing of five jet propulsors, and Keith strains his eyes just enough to see Hunk with Sam thrown over his shoulder, Pidge with her bayard wrapped around Matt.

What originally took Team Voltron two hours to travel, albeit because they were also searching for traces of Sam and Matt, was covered in the span of twenty minutes.

“We keep going,” Shiro declares, shooting past the edge of Kerberos without slowing down. “As long as we’re on Kerberos, we run the risk of those Galra finding us.”

“Shiro,” Hunk pants, “we can’t…”

“There’s an uninhabited island ten minutes away at our current speed,” Keith interrupts. He’s been searching on his in-built navigator while Shiro focuses on escaping Kerberos, specifically to look for a safe resting place for all of them. “The Galra can’t fly, we’ve seen that. They won’t be able to follow us there.”

“Good work, Keith.” And oh, those words make Keith’s heart skip a beat, even in a situation like this.

He’s hopeless, he acknowledges to himself as he lays his head back down onto Shiro’s shoulder for the next ten minutes.

Everybody flops down the moment they hit solid ground again. That is, everybody except Shiro, and by extension Keith.

“Keith needs urgent medical attention,” Sam tells Shiro, although he’s sitting on the grass and doesn’t seem capable of getting up.

Shiro nods. “Is anyone else injured?”

Everyone else shakes their heads. Keith tries not to flush in embarrassment.

“Right.” Shiro surveys them. “Then I’ll go on ahead. The rest of you, take as long as you need, and then head for the nearest outpost and spend the night there. Pace yourselves, and I’ll see you when you get back.”

The medics tut when Shiro carries Keith into the infirmary and strips him out of his armour for the X-ray. Clad only in his flightsuit, Keith can’t help but shiver, even as he tries to twist around to see the portable X-ray scanner being applied to his wing and gets scolded by the technician for moving.

“It’s a compound fracture,” one of the medics tells them, frowning over the X-ray images. “There’s some soft tissue damage here and here, probably from being jostled so many times, but nothing that should require surgery.”

Keith swallows.

“Will it heal?” Shiro asks, with a quick glance at Keith’s face. “Will he… be able to fly again?”

He feels his heart flip over when the medic nods. “He’ll have to be admitted for a week or so while we set the fracture and monitor for any complications, but if nothing goes wrong, no infection sets in or anything, it should heal.”

Keith mentally checks out of the conversation after that, letting himself be guided by Shiro and the growing retinue of medics through a few more scanning machines, some blood tests, and then finally an infirmary bed.

He’s only temporarily grounded, he reminds himself. He’ll be fine.

Maybe he can even catch up on his never-ending pile of paperwork.

Shiro clears his throat awkwardly. “I’ll see you later, yeah?” He lays a hand on Keith’s shoulder, careful to only touch the uninjured side.

“Yeah…”

“Do you need… clothes. You’ll need clothes. I’ll get some from your house,” Shiro says decisively, spinning on his heel and marching out of the door, leaving Keith blinking behind him.

Finally alone, Keith flops down onto the infirmary bed. “I’m so screwed, aren’t I,” he asks the pillow. His wing twinges in pain, as if in agreement.

Kosmo licks his hand soothingly.

Dawn is breaking by the time Keith makes it to the top of the Garrison Tower.

Shiro’s rarely anywhere else these days. In fact, Keith hears that Shiro even got part of the observatory converted into the official commander’s office.

Keith’s not surprised. For all that he’s tried to hide it, Shiro has always loved the view from the skies.

Shiro spins around when the door opens.

“Keith. You’re…” He looks first at Keith, and then at Kosmo.

“Yeah, they released me from the infirmary this morning.” Kosmo nuzzles at Keith’s hand, before bounding forwards to attempt to bowl Shiro over. “But I’m not going to be able to take Kosmo on flights for a few months at least while my wing heals, so, uh –”

“Keith,” Shiro interrupts gently. “Of course I’ll be happy to fly your wolf for you.” He bends down to give Kosmo a good scratching behind the ears. “Isn’t that right, good boy?”

Keith swallows. “Y-yeah.”

He doesn’t know what to say, now that he’s managed to come this far. Everything he’s wanted to say or ask is all jumbled up in his mind, and he can’t figure out the magical pattern that would let Shiro know he means it, or, well –

Shiro coughs.

“Will you go flying with me?”

Keith blinks.

“What, now?” he asks incredulously. Half his torso is still bandaged up, his wing set in a splint that the medics have _specifically_ told him not to strain for the next three months. Keith is reckless, but he doesn’t have a death-wish.

Shiro actually _blushes_. It’s such an unprecedented look on his face that Keith can’t help but stare.

“No, I mean –” he clears his throat, his wings shivering with… is that nervousness? “Later. After your wing heals.”

Keith squints.

“Wait.” He suddenly realises something. “When you say flying, do you mean flying, or do you mean _flying_ flying?” Just to be clear, he even adds air quotes to the latter phrase.

Shiro chokes, face turning a brighter red. “What are you, a teenager?”

Keith shrugs, careful not to move his injured side. “That’s what Lance calls it. He wants to go _flying_ flying with Allura.” That’s how Lance had said it too, when he visited Keith in the infirmary. With the air quotes and the finger-guns.

“Okay! No – I mean yes – I want to go _flying_ flying with you.”

Keith is morbidly fascinated to note that Shiro’s face now bears resemblance to a ripened tomato. He wonders what it says about himself that he finds even something like this _cute_.

“Yes.”

“… yes?” Shiro blinks. “Wait, you mean, _yes_ yes, or –”

Keith rolls his eyes. “ _Yes_ , I want to go flying with you. _Flying_ flying,” he emphasises, and adds the finger guns for good measure.

Shiro gapes for a good five seconds before his whole face lights up – with joy this time, instead of embarrassment.

“Really?” he asks, like he can’t believe Keith said yes.

Keith can’t even believe he has to ask. “ _Really_ ,” he repeats.

All those years of orbiting Shiro, first as a cadet then as the Red Paladin of Team Voltron. Years spent pretending to be nothing more than a platonic teammate, until his mother whacks him on the head and drags him bodily into an equally elite but different division. Years of forging his own path, out of Shiro’s larger-than-life shadow, until Keith can return as his equal.

All for this day.

He’ll tell Shiro that part of the story someday.

For now, Kosmo is staring longingly at the observatory balcony, and Keith really should have sent him to Shiro earlier, but Kosmo had refused to leave his bedside the entire week. The poor boy has been cooped up indoors far too long.

Shiro purses his lips, looking at Keith thoughtfully. “Want me to carry you so that we can take Kosmo on his flight together?”

“Stars, _yes_.”


	5. Chapter 5

It’s still pre-dawn.

Shiro yawns as he does his cool-down stretches in the observatory, looking out over the rest of the Galaxy Garrison.

The happy yip of a canine makes him turn around, just in time to see one man and one wolf vanish from the observatory balcony –

– and reappear in front of him.

“You know,” Shiro informs him, bending down to scratch behind Kosmo’s ears, “normal avians use the door. And _knock_.”

Keith looks pointedly down at his teleporting space wolf, and then back up at him. “Sounds exhausting.”

Shiro laughs, making his way over to his desk and perching on the edge of it. It’s devoid of paperwork for now, the last of yesterday’s papers still in the outbox, waiting for the admin staff to start work.

“Excited about the ceremony later?”

Keith shrugs. “It’ll be weird, seeing someone else wear the Red Paladin armour,” he admits.

“ _Not_ running to gear up every time the intercom calls for Team Voltron,” Shiro agrees, thinking of his first year after stepping down as the Black Paladin. He gestures for Keith to join him, which he does, after rearranging the table to make sure he won’t sit on anything important.

Kosmo shoves his head in-between them insistently, demanding scritches, to which Keith absentmindedly obliges.

The new paladin initiation ceremony begins in three hours, where they’ll officially hand over their bayards to the new generation. No more month-long disappearances. No more discovering new types of islands called “mountains”, anchored to the Underworld like Kerberos had been.

Pidge and Hunk are joining the R&D division, trying to reverse-engineer all the Galra technology they managed to get their hands on. Lance and Allura are setting off on an adventure to find Allura’s father. And Keith… Keith is joining the Galaxy Garrison as a part-time combat instructor at the Academy and the new commander of the Wings of Marmora.

“It’ll be nice to be home every night,” Keith confesses.

“Even though the new group of cadets drives you crazy?” Shiro teases. “I heard one of them threw up in the core-gravity simulator yesterday.”

Keith hesitates, grimacing, but eventually nods firmly. “Even then.” He turns a shy smile on Shiro. “After all, I have someone to come home to now.”


End file.
